A peddler approached the city of Tzipori and called out,“Who wants to buy the potion of life?” A crowd gathered around him. Rebbe Yanni said to the man, “I would like to purchase some.” The peddler responded, “It’s not for you and your type.” Rebbe Yanni persisted. Finally the peddler took out a Tehillim and opened it to the pasuk “Who is the man who wants life? Guard your tongue from evil.”
Rebbe Yanni exclaimed, “All of my life I’ve read that pasuk but I never appreciated how simple it was until this peddler revealed it to me.” — Vayikra Rabbah 16:2
The difficulty with this Midrash is that it doesn’t seem that Rebbe Yanni learned anything new. He clearly knew the pasuk before the peddler said it. He’d probably reviewed those words hundreds of times before. He had mastered the entire Torah and understood the meaning, depth, and implications of those words. What new concept did Rebbe Yanni learn from the peddler?
Imagine that a mother and father are looking for the right yeshiva for their son. After much investigation, they hit on the perfect solution. It’s got the right type of environment, the right type of boys, just the right fit. But then they hear the news: the boys in that yeshiva smoke.
Now what? It may be a great yeshiva, and their son might flourish there, but everyone knows smoking kills. It’s a habit that’s very difficult to break. It’s just not worth it.
So they decide not to send their son to that yeshiva.
While you and I might debate whether they made the right choice, no one would argue that they had a very valid concern. After all, bad habits really are difficult to change, and smoking does have serious health consequences.
Now let’s play out the same scenario with just one little adjustment: same young man, same yeshiva, same perfect fit. However, instead of the parents finding out the boys smoke, they find out the boys in that yeshiva speak lashon hara. What would we anticipate the parents’ reaction to be?
Would they say “Lashon hara kills; it may be a great yeshiva, but we can’t take the chance”?
Somehow it doesn’t seem that would be the reaction. More likely, their attitude would be, “Listen, it’s not something we are happy to hear, but it isn’t a reason to disqualify a good yeshiva.”
Let’s analyze the difference in their reactions. Assuming these are well-educated people, they know the Torah specifically, clearly, and definitively tells us that speaking lashon hara kills, and that guarding one’s tongue is the Torah’s guarantee for long life.
On the other hand, they are aware that while smoking has a high correlation to various diseases, at the end of the day it is only a small percentage of people who actually die from smoking-related complications.
So smoking, which might kill, they fear – yet lashon hara, which they know definitely kills, they aren’t that concerned about. How are we to understand this anomaly?
The answer is that when medical science tells us something, we accept it as truth. These are the facts; this is reality. Unfortunately, when the Torah tells us something, it just isn’t as “real” to most of us.
This seems to be the answer to Rebbe Yanni. As great as he was, and as much as he accepted every word of the Torah as completely true, on some level it wasn’t 100 percent real to him. The peddler revealed to Rabbi Yanni that the Torah teaches us “lashon hara kills” in its most simple, direct meaning. It then became real to him.
The Greatest Distance on Earth
There are two great lessons for us here. One is simply to understand the gravity of the words we utter – their effects on others and on ourselves. The second lesson is much more broad-based and affects all areas of our growth. We humans are motivated by that which we consider valuable. If we live in a culture that uses money and material possessions as the measure of success, this affects us and becomes part of our reality. It becomes a goal worth pursuing, something to aspire to and something to use as a gauge of our achievements. While we are acutely aware we can’t take it with us, our value system becomes distorted. This affects our focus and how we spend our time.
One of the most important aspects of growth is making the Torah’s values real. Not in theory, not as some remote distant idea, but rather by understanding that every word in the Torah is true. While we may not feel it now, one day we will. One day we will understand that every word of Torah learning is more precious than fine jewels. One day we will appreciate that every callous remark we ever made will come back to haunt us. And one day we will recognize that every action, deed, and thought will be played back to us at the end of our days.
The more we focus on the value system of the Torah, the more real it becomes to us, and the more motivated we will be by that which has eternal value and preciousness.